Dr. Bunsen Honeydew is the resident scientist on The Muppet Show, and the host of the Muppet Labs sketches. In season one of The Muppet Show he worked alone, but in season two, his assistant Beaker was added to the show. Bunsen is always eager to show off his latest scientific discovery, but his excitement about progress tends to render him short-sighted. Beaker usually ends up being harmed by Dr. Honeydew's inventions. Bunsen Honeydew's name comes from the scientific instrument called the Bunsen burner, and the shape of his head, which looks like a honeydew melon.

Bunsen's inventions have included a gorilla detector, exploding clothes, edible paper clips, a banana sharpener, hair-growing tonic, and a machine that can turn gold into cottage cheese.

Bunsen's birthday is on the 20th of some month. In the Muppet Babies episode "Muppetland," Bunsen invites Kermit to his birthday which is to take place "in two weeks." Kermit circles Saturday the 20th on the calendar in a month with 31 days. This episode aired in 1987 and no months match the calendar seen.

In a 2004 Internet poll sponsored by the BBC and the British Association for the Advancement of Science, Beaker and Dr. Bunsen Honeydew were voted Britain's favorite cinematic scientists. They beat Star Trek's Mr. Spock, their closest rival, by a margin of 2 to 1 and won 33 percent of the 43,000 votes cast.

According to his laboratory door seen in the "Flowers on the Wall" music video, Dr. Honeydew is a certified Ph.D., esquire and a C.S.I.O.E (Chief Scientist in Charge of Everything).

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Myths

There is a myth that Dr. Bunsen Honeydew was intentionally patterned after the real life person of Lord Grade (aka Lew Grade). Jim Henson commented on this in a 1982 interview stating:

“Bunsen Honeydew was not specifically Lord Grade when we did him. It would have been easy to make him much more like Lew Grade if we had tried to and, in retrospect, I wish that we had. The character that owns the Muppet theatre only appeared a couple of times and I always -- in looking back -- wished that I had made that to look just like Lew Grade because he's very caricaturable.”